CP Spotlight: Codie Leonsch-Hartwig

B: i think it will be fun. ok, (i'm just making these questions up, sort of altering the ones AC suggests ok?

C: Ok, to start, what is your drive in writing, (and in film writing especially), or whence your interest in the arts?

B: Oh my oh dear okay um...Well, the short answer is my drive comes from wanting to spare the people I know from having to listen to me talk all the myriad ideas I have marshaling themselves through my mind (ask Tamara). The real answer is I feel a great affection, really, in seeing words tumbled out and over each other and line up and build on each other to create meaning: create feelings, motivation, ideas, epiphanies, joy, courage, understanding, unity, all manner of things (sadly, words can create destructive feelings, ideas, motivations and all the rest of it, too, but I prefer to go for those that built-up and edify--I hope I succeed more often than I fail). And the more precision in this tumbling and lining and creating, the better, hence my current study of English Linguistics. Which leads to the aside that it is imperative that I not post articles on AC or on my own site at 2 and 3 AM. Ohmygosh. What a mistake to post at 3 AM. Better to be a day or two later with a posting than do one at 3 AM. (End of aside.)

As to film writing, that is a funny story, really, of happenstance and serendipity or, to put it differently, of propitious Providential provision. Fact one: I recently completed my long, long, long neglected BA degree but first needed one more class in Fine Arts. So I reluctantly took a History of Film class. I was surprised to find it interesting and challenging: It was hard to learn to think in a new vocabulary and within new analytical skills. And two instructors encouraged me to begin reviewing movies professionally (easier said than done). Fact Two: My son, temporarily home after four years in the US Coast Guard, started insisting on my watching movies (I've never been a big movie fan). Fact 3: Just before leaving to finish his BA in an art college, he brought home Master and Commander; I was mesmerized and wanted a place to publish a review of it.